The Dark Side of Love

Schami's vast Damascene saga braids a forbidden love across a blood feud between two clans with a murder mystery and a century of Syrian history. Old Damascus is its heart: the Christian quarter of Bab Touma where the clans live, the ancient Straight Street running through the walled city, the Umayyad Mosque at its centre, and the shadow of the secret police; the feud reaches back to the mountain village of Mala from which both families came.

Farid

Bab Touma (the Christian quarter)

The clans

In the courtyards and lanes of Bab Touma, the Mushtak and Shahin clans nurse an ancient feud, and into it are born Farid and Rana, who will love each other across the poisoned line. Schami fills the quarter with a whole world of relatives, priests, tradesmen and gossips, the dense social fabric the lovers must defy.

The clan chapters

explicit The rival Christian clans of the novel live in and around Bab Touma, the real Christian quarter in the old walled city of Damascus; the district anchors the family saga.

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